The Parable of the Vineyard and the Human Heart

from the vineyard that he had planted.

Of course, he is the landowner, he is the master of the vineyard, and he has leased out his vineyard to the nation of Israel, and by extension to the people of God, which is us.

And he has done everything possible to ensure the success of the vineyard.

And then he sent servants in order to reap from the fruit of the vineyard.

But as we read in the parable, those who should have been stewards, as we read in the Pauline epistle about St. Paul speaking of himself as a steward, they... assumed ownership of the land, and they mistreated, beat, and even killed those that were sent on behalf of the landowner.

Ultimately, he thinks in his patience that if he sends his son, they might respect his son.

And of course, this is the Lord Jesus Christ in his incarnation.

And yet we see that they treat the son even with more malice than they treated the servants who were the prophets before him.

So this is the parable that's presented before us.

The context is as we're approaching the end of the year, the vintage time.

It's the time of reaping, the time of receiving the fruit that should have been produced by all that God has done for his people.

And so for us, we can see that also in this parable is an image of the human heart.

The human heart is the vineyard of the Lord.

God has sowed in our hearts the grace of our baptism.

He has sowed in our hearts the grace of the sacraments.

He has sowed his word in our hearts as we read about in the parable of the sower in Matthew chapter 13 and elsewhere.

And so he has done everything he could so that the heart, the human heart, can produce the fruit of faith, hope, and love and the virtues of And so we reflect this morning together on this image of the human heart and how we also have to be sort of on guard for the dangers of what this parable is pointing to as it relates to safeguarding and being vigilant over our own hearts.